Felipe Polo Garzon

Bio

Felipe Polo-Garzon received his BS in Chemical Engineering from Universidad del Valle (Colombia), and received his PhD in Chemical Engineering from Clemson University (United States) under the advice of Professor David A. Bruce. His doctoral work consisted of a combined experimental and computational description of the reaction mechanism for dry reforming of methane (DRM) over pyrochlore catalysts. After obtaining his doctorate, he joined Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Surface Chemistry and Catalysis Group in the Chemical Sciences Division. Later, he became a R&D Staff within the same group. His research interests deal with the development of reactivity descriptors for heterogeneous catalysis—including thermal catalysis and plasma catalysis—, as well as the elucidation of governing reaction mechanisms through in-situ and operando characterization techniques, kinetic analysis and computational tools. As part of this effort, he is interested in investigating the reconstruction of operating catalyst surfaces. His research expertise includes acid-base catalysis (e.g., alcohol conversion), natural gas upgrading (e.g., methane reforming, coupling, alkane dehydrogenation), and polymer upcycling. Catalytic materials of interest include liquid metal catalysts, mixed metal oxides, zeolites and supported-metal catalysts.

Publications